Motel One plans approved
Plans for a new hotel designed by Stephen Hodder for German chain Motel One in Manchester's Piccadilly area were approved by the city council's planning committee on Thursday.
Hodder + Partners won a design contest at the end of last year to design the 330-room hotel facing Piccadilly station on the corner of London Road and Whitworth Street.
The developer is London-based Olympian Group, which acquired the site out of administration from a subsidiary of Targetfollow.
The construction tender brief has been issued immediately and a contractor is expected to be appointed in the autumn ready to start construction in the first quarter of 2013. The hotel, in blocks of eight and 13 storeys, is scheduled to take around 18 months to complete.
Leases with current tenants including Hotel International and nightclub operators Legends are due expire at the end of this year.
One of the buildings set for demolition housed the Twisted Wheel club famed for the birth of Northern Soul. The plans for the new hotel have divided local opinion and angered certain music fans.
The planning committee deferred its decision by one month while negotiations were held with the nightclub operators over possibly saving the basement club space, although this plan was deemed unfeasible by planning officers and the developers.
The nightclub bosses will be allowed to take fittings from the venue and are believed to be planning a new venture elsewhere.
